It is customary that the last section of the stator winding before the end of the route is short-circuited in a terminus station for a magnetic levitation railway. This is possible because the stator winding has separate sections which are arranged in series. As a result of the short-circuiting of the last section of the stator winding, a braking force is applied to the vehicle when a vehicle travels through this section. Since the braking force emanates from the route, braking of the vehicle is always ensured when it reaches the last section before the end of the route.
The last section must be so long that safe stopping of the vehicle is ensured even if the vehicle has accelerated until just before the last section was reached. Although it is generally ensured that the velocity of the vehicle is already reduced before the last section is reached, a fault in the control of the vehicle may nevertheless result in an undesired acceleration just before the last section of the route. In order to ensure safe stopping always, the last section before the end of the route must therefore be made so long that safe stopping is always ensured even after undesired acceleration. As a result, the costs for setting up the route are very high.
It has already been proposed to reduce the velocity of the vehicle before it reaches the last section of the route by providing the stator of the penultimate section only partially with a winding. As a result, the vehicle always enters the station at a very low velocity, which undesirably lengthens the travel times.